


On with the Show

by AstroGirl



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 11:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21160739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: After discorporating, Aziraphale arrives back on Earth a little bit late.  Or, more accurately, he arrives just in time.





	On with the Show

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo, for the prompt "suicide attempt." Consider that to be a content warning. Although I will note that there is nothing at all graphic.

He can't sit here in this pub drinking forever.

He hasn't got forever. Not anymore.

He hasn't got anything anymore. Nothing but this pub and this glass and this bottle, and soon none of that will exist anymore, either.

Aziraphale is dead. Aziraphale is _dead_, and everything Aziraphale loved is flames and ashes, or will be soon, and Crowley has no idea how to stop it. 

_I'm sorry. Aziraphale, I'm sorry. I failed. I failed at everything. _ He's not certain whether he says it out loud or not. Doesn't matter. The angel isn't here to hear it. Because Crowley failed him, and he's dead.

At least all the humans will go somewhere when they die. Which they will, very soon. They'll go to Heaven, which is terrible, or Hell, which is worse, but they might at least hope to see one another again.

What happens to beings like him when they're destroyed? Is there an afterlife, somewhere, for angels and demons, as far outside their experience as Heaven and Hell are for the humans? Is there a chance, some tiny, absurd, impossible chance, that he'll be able to see Aziraphale again and tell him... tell him...?

_Satan._ He doesn't know what he wants to say to him, just that he'd give anything for the chance. If he had anything. Which he doesn't, now. 

Anyway, he's pretty sure the answer to "what happens to beings like us when we're destroyed" is nothing. Nothing and nothing and nothing, forever, amen.

Well. It could be worse. 

Could be a _lot_ worse.

Might be a lot worse. If Hell comes for him again, which they will. If Hell finds him again. Which they will. He'll be lucky if they let him die. He killed a _Duke of Hell_. They won't forgive that. Demons don't forgive anything, but they definitely won't forgive _that_. Not even with a war to distract them. 

They know a few things about eternal torture in Hell.

"Should have come with me, angel," he murmurs to his bottle. "Should have come with me."

He's not going to Alpha Centauri alone. Not that he could, now. Not that they wouldn't hunt him down, even there. But it doesn't matter. He's not going alone.

But he can't sit here in this pub drinking forever. It won't exist, soon. 

If only he hadn't used all the holy water.

Crowley lets that thought sit in his mind for a while, lets it seep down in among the alcohol and the despair, lets it spend some time and make itself at home.

There is still holy water in the world, for a little while yet.

He's fairly sure there's a church just down the street.

It won't take a heist. All it will take is a little burning in the feet. Nothing compared to what's burned today so far.

Crowley downs the rest of his drink. He stands. He gathers up the book, the last precious remnant of six thousand years of Aziraphale, and, holding it to his chest, he leaves.

**

He's standing at the font when Aziraphale appears. 

His fingers are close enough to the holy water that he can already feel them beginning to tingle. And then he hears his name. And he turns. And sees a translucent, disembodied angel staring at him in shock.

For a moment all he can think, drunkenly, absurdly, is that he was wrong about the afterlife. That he's dead already, the pain of it mercifully forgotten, and this is his punishment or his reward. "Thank God," he tries to say – yes, truly, unironically, _thank God_ – at the same time he tries to say "I'm sorry," and it all comes out together as something like "thrggghhhryh.".

Aziraphale cries out his name again and rushes towards him, tries to pull him away from the water, but his hands go right through Crowley, flailing around inside Crowley's chest, insubstantial and ineffective.

He isn't dead. _He isn't dead_. He's incorporeal but he's _here_, they're both _here_.

Crowley yelps and jumps away from the font as if it's burned him. As if being burned is suddenly a thing he's frightened of again.

Aziraphale looks like he wants to cry. There are so many expressions on his face that Crowley can't process them all. But what he says is, "There's no time. Crowley, listen. I need you to listen. It doesn't have to be the end. You have to get to Tadfield Airbase. That's where it will happen. The end of the world. I'll... I'll try to meet you there. We might still be able to stop it."

Crowley's feet are burning. His heart is... He's not sure what his heart is doing, but it's beautiful, and it _hurts_. "Aziraphale..."

Aziraphale bites his lip, and reaches for Crowley again. Ghostly fingers fail to touch his arm. "You have to hurry. It took me so long to find you. There isn't any _time_."

"Tadfield Airbase," he says. "Got it. _Go._"

**

There is time. There is just enough time. There is all the time in the world.

**

They don't talk about it on the bench. They don't talk about it on the bus. Crowley thinks maybe they're not going to talk about it at all.

Maybe they can pretend it never happened.

**

But there's still a melted pile of Ligur on the floor of Crowley's flat. He didn't think about that when he invited Aziraphale to stay.

Aziraphale looks at the mess. He looks at Crowley. He's _trembling_.

"That's what I wanted it for," Crowley says, quietly. "I swear. That's what I wanted it for. I wasn't planning to..."

"If I'd been one moment later..." The angel puts out a hand and braces himself against a wall, as if he might fall over, otherwise. "_Crowley._ If I'd--"

"Don't. Angel, don't. It's fine. Nothing happened. We're fine."

"No we bloody well _aren't_!"

Crowley blinks in surprise. 

Aziraphale removes his hand from the wall and clasps his other hand with it, very tightly, in front of him. His voice is shaking, just a little. "Why do you think I didn't want to give it to you in the first place? The thought of you, like this..." He looks at Ligur again, and if Crowley didn't know better, he'd almost think the angel was fighting not to vomit.

"Better than what Hell might have done to me." What they _still_ might do, Crowley doesn't say, since he's fairly sure at this point they're just going to want him safely, efficiently dead. "Better than... than sitting and waiting for the end alone. Angel, you have to understand."

Aziraphale nods as if he does understand. His fingers writhe and twist against each other.

"I'm..." Crowley starts to say, but he never gets to _sorry_, because suddenly Aziraphale is rushing towards him, clinging to him. Aziraphale's face is buried in his shoulder and Aziraphale's arms are around him, and there are no words that can withstand this. He lets out a small, embarrassing sound and wraps his arms around Aziraphale without thinking about it. Without thinking about anything.

"I couldn't have borne it," Aziraphale is saying into his shoulder. "I couldn't have. If I'd come back and... and found you _destroyed_."

Something in Crowley's chest aches like it's trying to burst free. "Well, then you know how I felt," he says, and he tries to make it flippant, or sardonic, or _anything_ other than vulnerable and desperate, but he fails.

Aziraphale lifts his face and looks into Crowley's eyes. He holds his gaze there, holds it until Crowley removes a hand from the angel's back and slowly takes his glasses off. He's not sure what he does with them. Slips them into a pocket, lets them fall to the floor? He doesn't pay attention, doesn't care. Let his hand do with them whatever it wants to do. 

"Crowley," says Aziraphale, now eye to unobscured eye. "Promise me. _Promise me_ you'll never do anything like that again."

"I promise." It comes out as a rasp, a croak. He tries again. "Yeah. I promise."

"Good," says Aziraphale, and oh, the way he's _looking _ at Crowley. It makes the thing in his chest flutter and dance. "We're meant to have eternity," Aziraphale says. "I really don't want to have to spend it alone."

"We might not have it, anyway. If the plan doesn't work." Shakily, he rests his hand against Aziraphale's cheek. Aziraphale lets him. _Aziraphale lets him._ Whatever else this might or might not be the end of, at least it's definitely the end of _we aren't even friends_. He's glad they've got that far. Only took them six thousand years.

"It will work." The angel, his doubting angel, sounds more certain than Crowley has ever heard him.

"Yeah," Crowley says, believing him, and dares to stroke his cheek. 

"And then we'll have the rest of eternity," Aziraphale says, "to do whatever we like." His eyes are shining.

Crowley pulls him close, wraps both arms around him again. The weight of his body against Crowley's is reassuringly solid and warm. "I'm looking forward to it, angel," he says.

He is. He _is_. 

He's not going to fail now. Not when he has this much to live for.

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently when discorporated Aziraphale appeared to Crowley in canon, he wasn't actually able to see him. I'm figuring that he may have showed up later in this version, but he had a slightly better connection.
> 
> Also, I have finally given in to the temptation to use Queen lyrics for a title. Well. I suppose it happens to all of us eventually.


End file.
